It has become commonplace for players and playing pieces in sports to be equipped with wireless devices to acquire data concerning game play, especially in team sports such as basketball, soccer, football, hockey, etc. Although such game play may be tracked with cameras, there can be moments when multiple players are in such close proximity to a playing piece (e.g., a ball or a puck) that it becomes at least difficult to discern which player has control over or is otherwise interacting with the playing piece at any given time. As familiar to many who participate in or at least closely follow various team sports, statistical information concerning which player(s) have interacted with the playing piece during the course of game play can be of significance in analyzing the performance of players and/or teams of players. Such performance analysis is often an input in coaching players and/or in selecting players to join a team.
Such wireless devices as are worn by players and/or integrated into playing pieces are often powered with batteries. This often places considerable limitations on the amount of power available to operate the sensors that gather data and to operate the transmitters that transmit the data. While such limitations could be reduced if larger batteries could be used with wireless devices carried on the bodies of players, the additional weight of larger batteries may encumber the very player performance to be monitored. Also, while such limitations could correspondingly be reduced if larger batteries could be used with a wireless device incorporated into a playing piece, the playing pieces used in many sports are tightly regulated in terms of their shape, size and weight such that the use of larger batteries may cause the playing piece to exceed one or more of these specifications.